


The Alexander Technique

by Mireille



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-12
Updated: 2006-12-12
Packaged: 2019-03-13 11:10:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13569360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: Xander wants to learn how to sword-fight. Beyond that, it's basically PWP.





	The Alexander Technique

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in the latter half of S3. Xander is 18, but still in high school.

"This isn't a sword." Xander took the foil Giles handed him, looking down at it with obvious disappointment. 

"No," Giles agreed, "it's a fencing foil."

"It doesn't even have a point!" Xander protested. "I asked you to teach me how to swordfight, not how to fencing-foil-fight. What am I supposed to do to a demon with this, stick it up its nose?" 

Giles sighed. He would wonder what had possessed him to agree to this, but he knew that at the time, it had seemed perfectly reasonable. Xander had been putting himself in danger on a regular basis for the past two years. It was a good--if a little belated--idea to give him some basic skills in handling a weapon. Giles doubted he'd make an expert swordsman out of him before Xander lost interest, but if it left him a bit less defenseless, so much the better. 

It had seemed reasonable when Xander had suggested that they practice somewhere other than the library, as well. The library worked perfectly well for Buffy's training, Giles had pointed out; Xander's response was to nod vigorously. "That's the point," he said. "Buffy. Also known as the number-one person I don't want to see me making an idiot out of myself with a sword." 

Giles had realized he didn't particularly want to hear Wesley's opinion on whether or not 'civilians' ought to be trained, either, and he'd agreed to hold Xander's first training session that Sunday afternoon at his flat. 

Apparently it was only school that Xander was perpetually late for, because he'd showed up half an hour early, in time to help Giles push some of the furniture back against the walls to give them enough room to work. Giles had begun to believe that this was actually one of Xander's better ideas, despite all the doubts that had begun to percolate in the back of his mind over the weekend. 

Then he'd brought out the foils, and Xander's enthusiasm had vanished completely. 

"It isn't for fighting," Giles said, trying to sound more patient than he felt. "It's for training. You know how heavy a broadsword is; it's hardly the ideal weapon for a beginner. And as for the lack of a point--do you actually blame me for not wanting your first fencing lesson to end in bloodshed? Especially as it's my blood that's likely to be shed?"

"This is because I had to use the little-kid scissors until second grade, isn't it?" Xander muttered, then, at Giles' blank look, clarified, "Um. In kindergarten? The scissors with the round ends instead of points? Just because the first time we got to use the real scissors, I forgot I had them in my hand and nearly stabbed Harmony in the shoulder, I got stuck using the blunt ones for an extra two years." 

Giles shook his head. "And how would I have known that?"

"You mean it's not in my permanent record?" Xander grinned. "I always knew that was an empty threat." 

"This has nothing to do with you, specifically," Giles said, trying to drag the conversation back onto the topic at hand. 

"Is this how you learned how to sword-fight?" 

"Yes, of course," Giles said, and that seemed to do the trick. Xander still wasn't quite as enthusiastic as he'd been at the outset, but he seemed willing to at least give it a try. 

And he was trying, Giles reminded himself, over and over again. He'd never planned, no matter how well this lesson had progressed, to teach Xander any sophisticated technique; Xander was interested in practical swordsmanship, after all, not competitive fencing. On the other hand, Xander did need to be able to move with ease, and if he held the foil as though he planned to use it to chop firewood, it didn't bode well for his ability to use a sword effectively if attacked. 

Finally, Giles despaired of being able to explain to Xander, or even to _show_ him, the correct position and decided that enough was enough. He walked over to Xander, standing behind him. "Let me show you," he said, gripping Xander's arms and carefully nudging him into the right position. 

At least, it would have been the right position, if Xander hadn't tensed up even more than he already had been, joints stiff and unyielding. "Xander," Giles said firmly, "if you don't master the proper stance, we won't be able to progress any further." He regretted the irritation in his voice, but that didn't mean he was able to control it. 

"Do you make Buffy do this?" Xander demanded. Even his voice sounded tense, and Giles wondered if he'd been pushing too hard. He didn't think he had been, but he was also aware that things probably looked very different from Xander's side. 

"No," Giles admitted. "But if I'd been her Watcher before she was called as the Slayer, I would have. She has a natural instinct with weapons, one I don't expect you--or any other ordinary person--to be able to imitate without long hours of practice." 

" _Wesley_ can do this," Xander muttered scornfully, but he seemed to relax a little, letting Giles adjust his stance. "I mean, sure, you're better than he is, but it's not like he's completely incompetent when you two are practicing in the library."

"Wesley," Giles pointed out, "has undoubtedly been practicing since he was a boy. After twenty years, I daresay most people would achieve at least minimal competence." Patience, he reminded himself. This was a good idea; Xander wasn't likely to stop putting himself in harm's way, and if he had some training, he'd be much safer. Xander simply hadn't ever learned self-discipline. 

And it wasn't Xander's fault if Giles' own self-discipline had been showing signs of breaking down lately. He couldn’t be certain if his own impatience with Xander's awkwardness was deserved, or whether he simply wanted to be able to end this training session quickly, before the barriers he'd put up--the lecturing tone he'd adopted, the edge to his voice, even the way he'd consciously chosen to dress this morning as though he were going to the library, not wanting to let any informality creep in--eroded, and he made a much bigger mistake than stifling Xander's interest in weapons training. 

"Minimal competence," Xander repeated, and Giles didn't have to be facing him to know he was rolling his eyes. "Now there's a goal I can be proud of." His stance improved, though, and Giles moved away, demonstrating a simple lunge for Xander to practice. 

And practice. 

And practice. 

"You're too tense," Giles told him for what felt like the fiftieth time, but surely couldn't be more than the fifth. "You can't move properly if you have your joints locked." And this lesson would never end; at least, that was how it seemed to Giles. He was doomed to spend eternity in his living room, watching Xander execute a stiff and awkward lunge, over and over again until the end of time. Or at least until he forgot himself and stopped watching Xander's technique, and started watching Xander. 

Xander looked at him blankly, and Giles wondered how his colleagues at the school managed to drag themselves out of bed each morning, knowing that every hour, they'd be faced with thirty identical vacant stares. He racked his brain, trying to think of something to get through to Xander, something to let him _feel_ how he should be moving, should be standing. 

In the end, he moved behind Xander again. "Relax," he said, trying to keep all impatience out of his voice. "I'm going to try to push you; all you have to do is keep your balance." 

"Easy for you to say," Xander said, but he nodded. 

Giles put one hand on Xander's bicep, the other at his waist, and tried to nudge him off-balance. He could feel Xander tense, bracing himself against the push, and Giles shook his head. "Not like that," he said. "Move in the direction I'm pushing you, and bend your legs to keep your balance." This time, when he pushed, Xander seemed to be trying to do what Giles had asked of him, and Giles smiled. "Much better," he said softly, nudging Xander off-balance again and feeling him recover more quickly. 

Perhaps he'd been too harsh. Xander hadn't ever received any sort of training, and Giles, with years of it behind him, had been awkward enough at Xander's age. And Xander was making an effort, after all. 

_Had been_ making an effort, he corrected himself, as Xander tensed again, fighting against Giles' push instead of moving with it. "What now?" Giles asked, leaving his hands where they were, on Xander's shoulder and hip. If he didn't have to move back into position, Xander would be a little more surprised at the next push off-balance, when it came, and he'd have to work a little harder. 

"Nothing," Xander said, although his voice was tight. "Everything's fine. Just go on." 

"We can stop for today," Giles suggested, recalling some of his own early training sessions. He'd been much younger than Xander, but he remembered reaching a point where he was so frustrated at not being able to mimic his father exactly that he stopped being able to understand anything he was being told. 

Xander's reply came almost before Giles finished the last word. "No. No, I'm good," he said, rolling his shoulders and turning his head from side to side. "See? Relaxed. Ready. Go ahead." 

Giles did, one corner of his brain storing up the heat and the angles of Xander's hip through cotton sweatpants, while the rest of him concentrated fixedly on the rhythm of the training exercise: push Xander off-balance, let him catch himself, start again. Push, catch, repeat: now a gentle shove at Xander's hip, next a push on his shoulder, then a nudge of knee against knee, and Xander was finally beginning to get it, to move smoothly, leaning and bending and not fighting against the push.

Or at least, Giles thought Xander had been beginning to get it, until Xander tensed up again, bracing against Giles and not managing to suppress a frustrated-sounding moan. 

"We'll move on," Giles said, and Xander stepped away from him, still facing away from Giles.

"That's okay," Xander said, his voice tight again. "I think I need to go. It's getting late, and this isn't--I can't...." He shrugged, trailing off. 

"You're getting it, Xander; I know it's time-consuming, but--"

"It's fine. It was... you were fine, I'm not complaining, I just--I need to go," Xander repeated. "Late. Sunday. Homework."

Giles glanced at the clock; less than an hour had passed since they started. "It isn't that late," he said, "but if you have to go, can I at least get help moving things back into place?"

Xander hesitated, but then sighed. "Yeah. I can do that," he said, finally, although he didn't move from where he stood, still holding the foil. 

"The sooner we get started, the sooner you can get to your homework," Giles said, this time not trying to hide his irritation. It wasn't that he objected to Xander giving some time to his studies, but why go to all this trouble if he hadn't actually been serious?

As he moved around Xander to push a chair back into place, Xander turned as well, but not before Giles had seen the flush on his cheeks, had let his gaze drop down just long enough to realize that Xander had been keeping his back turned out of embarrassment, not annoyance. Good Lord. Giles wondered why anyone would ever regret not being eighteen years old any longer; at least with age came _some_ control. "Xander," he began. 

Xander spared him the need to think of how to finish the sentence by cutting him off. "Don't, Giles, okay? I don't need anything about when you were my age, or how this happened at your first fencing lesson--"

"I had my first fencing lesson when I was six years old," Giles said dryly, "and my father was my instructor. I can't imagine either of us would find that particular fiction comforting." 

That earned a weak chuckle from Xander. "Not so much," he said. "But the point is, I don't want to hear it. It's... I get it, okay? I don't need a speech about how I'll get over the dumb crush one of these days, and besides, I'm just a kid, so even if you _weren't_ completely repulsed by the idea--"

"Xander," Giles repeated, but again, he wasn’t allowed to finish his sentence. 

"And it's _okay_ , it's just... today, with the touching, and the kind of taking me seriously, and... okay, mostly the touching, but I swear, I'm not going to be obsessive stalker-boy, or anything. In fact, you know what would make me happy? If we never spoke of this again. Starting right n--."

"Xander!" Giles' voice was louder now, sharper, and Xander closed his mouth mid-syllable. "Thank you." Xander started to reply, and Giles held his hand up. "If I might get a word in edgewise?" 

Xander closed his mouth again and nodded. 

"Thank you," Giles repeated. "Now, I'm not certain what reaction you, er, expected me to have, but I assure you, I'm not as horrified as you think."

"So we can chalk this up to 'stupid kid with a crush' and let it go?"

"If that's what you want," Giles said, trying not to sound disappointed; after all, it _was_ for the best. "Although considering that I'm training you to go out and put yourself in mortal danger, it would be hypocritical of me to think of you as a child." Most of the students at Sunnydale High, yes, but not Buffy and her friends. They'd been forced to grow up far too quickly for Giles to consider them children--young, inexperienced, often foolish, but not children. 

If nothing else, his growing attraction to Xander over the past few months was a clear indication that Giles thought of him as anything but a child. Not, of course, that Xander knew anything of that. Even now, it would be foolish of Giles to act on, or even give voice to--

Giles cut off that train of thought. He'd already determined that he could live with himself, after all, and life was short enough that perhaps he ought to indulge in a bit of foolishness from time to time. "And," he added softly, "I'm willing to write it off as a harmless crush--but I have to admit that I'd be slightly disappointed." 

There were long seconds when Giles watched Xander blink, watched the movement of his throat as he swallowed, and then, finally, Xander said, "Are you saying what I think--because if you're not, and I say--there's a limit to how stupid I want to look in one day, you know." 

"I'm saying," Giles said, "that far from seeing a 'stupid kid with a crush,' I'm looking at an attractive young man whom I've considered a friend for quite some time, and who, given a chance, I could come to consider as much more than that."

Another long pause; for someone as prone to babble as Xander, he was getting quite good at weighty silences. "I, uh," he began at last. "You do? I mean, you could? Seriously?"

"Seriously," Giles said, coming to stand in front of Xander. "I could. I do." The kiss, at first, was only a touch of his lips to Xander's, until Xander returned it, bringing his hand up to rest on the back of Giles' neck, pulling him in closer. His lips parted, letting Giles deepen the kiss, coax soft moans and tiny whimpers out of Xander as Giles' tongue explored his mouth, while Giles' hands slid down to settle in the small of Xander's back. 

"We never finished your lesson," Giles murmured when they finally parted; he smiled at the sight of Xander's reddened, kiss-swollen mouth. 

"We don't have to," Xander said quickly, reaching for Giles again, but Giles stepped away, moving behind Xander. 

"Oh, yes," he said. "I think we do." Xander sighed dramatically, looking around for where he'd put his foil, and Giles shook his head. "Leave that," he said. "You won't need it." His hands settled in a familiar position, upper arm and right hip, although this time, he allowed himself to caress Xander's arm, to curl his hand around Xander's hip, sliding closer to the tent of fabric covering Xander's erection. "Keep your balance," Giles whispered, brushing his lips over the back of Xander's neck. 

This time, Xander moved with him, body yielding to Giles' nudges and pushes, hips and knees flexing to stabilize himself. Giles allowed his hand to slide further around Xander's hip, cupping Xander's erection. Xander tensed for a moment, and Giles breathed, "Tell me if you want me to stop."

Xander shook his head quickly, and then he relaxed again, his body following the movements of Giles' hand. 

The back of Xander's neck, Giles was discovering, was definitely a sensitive area; when he began tracing patterns on it with the tip of his tongue, it became his turn to adjust to Xander's movements, reacting to the sudden thrust of Xander's cock against his palm. He shifted forward, until his own hardening cock was pressed against Xander, and felt Xander react again, pushing back and rubbing against him until Giles wasn't certain which of them was groaning. 

Giles tugged at the elastic of Xander's sweatpants, pulling them and Xander's underwear down until Giles could wrap his hand around Xander's erection. Now he knew both of them had moaned; Xander at the sudden contact of skin on skin, and Giles at the way Xander's hips jerked, the thrust of Xander's cock into his fist. "Move with me," Giles whispered, and Xander's whimper sent a jolt through his body to his own erection. 

He let go of Xander's arm, trying to fumble his own buttons open one-handed, to unhook braces and shove trousers and boxers down without ever having to let go of Xander. He didn't want to let go of Xander, because given the proper incentive, Xander's movements were fluid, the only tension found in the ragged hitch of his breathing as Giles' hand moved on his cock.

Xander's trousers were down far enough that Giles' erection pressed against warm skin now, and Giles groaned, his other hand now grabbing at Xander's hip, pulling him back harder against Giles. He didn't have to urge Xander to move with him; Xander's hips rolled forward, his cock pushing into Giles' hand, and then pushed back, giving Giles some of the same blissful friction. Xander reached behind him, clutching at Giles as best he could, pulling their bodies even closer together, and Giles moaned into the sweat-dampened skin of Xander's shoulder. 

Surprisingly, Xander wasn't talking. He wasn't silent, far from it; every movement from Giles seemed to provoke a groan, a cry, or a whimper from Xander, and Giles couldn't resist drawing them out of him, again and again until Xander's breath sounded almost like sobbing. "P-please," Xander finally stammered. "Please, Giles, _God_...."

If Xander wore a shirt with a collar, Giles told himself, the mark he was leaving on the back of Xander's neck would be completely hidden. He bit down lightly, sucking at the skin while Xander thrust and groaned and finally tensed again, moaning something that might have been words in Xander's head, at least, as Xander thrust into Giles' hand one last time and came. 

Giles stilled for a moment, holding Xander up when his knees buckled slightly and giving him a chance to catch his breath. He was still panting heavily when he started to pull away from Giles, and his voice was still hoarse as he said, "Let me--"

"This is all I need," Giles said, not wanting to give up the contact for even a few moments, and Xander let himself be pulled closer again. 

Now it was Giles' turn to follow the movement of Xander's hips, to clutch at hip and shoulder, to groan hoarsely in Xander's ear as Xander pushed against him, grinding against Giles, the slide of Giles' cock against the cleft between Xander's buttocks making him ache for the time in the hopefully-not-too-far future when he could bury himself in Xander's tight heat. 

It was that image that sent him over the edge, the vivid picture in his mind's eye of Xander gasping and writhing beneath him, arching back to meet Giles' thrusts. Giles' fingers tightened on Xander's hip, pulling Xander in closer as Giles groaned and came, his mouth still pressed against Xander's neck. 

For a little while, the only sound in the room was their breathing, gradually smoothing and slowing as they recovered. Xander turned around in Giles' arms, standing a little stiffly until Giles bent down to kiss him again, then relaxing and resting his head on Giles' shoulder. 

"Fencing," Xander murmured, "is the best thing ever invented."

Giles laughed, and at the moment, he couldn't think of a single argument to contradict him.

**Author's Note:**

> I owe a debt to [Fencing with Ease, by David Littell](http://www.fencing.net/content/view/36/40/)\--which, I realized after staring at it for a week, is about an application of the Alexander Technique to fencing drills. (That should explain any question you have about the title. ) 
> 
> [me on tumblr](https://mireille719.tumblr.com)


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